Politicians, news media figures, and assorted leftists who slandered Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh have not been held accountable for their misconduct, said Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino, authors of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court, in a Friday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.
The Democrats and broader left used the “politics of personal destruction” during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court, said Hemingway, senior editor at the Federalist and Fox News contributor.
“This is part of a larger effort by some people to have the politics of personal destruction be dominant,” Hemingway assessed. “It’s why it was important that Kavanaugh actually win the confirmation battle, because if he had lost it, it would have been lights out for this type of politics.”
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Those orchestrating slander against Kavanaugh have not been held accountable, said Hemingway.
Hemingway said, “What concerns [Carrie Severino] and me is that no one really has been held accountable for some of what happened, and the way to prevent this from happening in the future is to hold people accountable.”
Hemingway went on, “There were senators who intentionally and willfully violated or abandoned Senate processes and procedures, and nothing happened to them. Dianne Feinstein circumvented the Senate procedures put in place to protect nominees and people who make allegations against them. Nothing happened.”
Hemingway added, “Nothing happened to Cory Booker or Kamala Harris for their antics during the hearing. It merely elevated their profiles. The media didn’t receive any punishment. They just gave each other awards. And then some of the people who made false allegations actually did get criminal referrals, but to this point nothing has actually been done to prosecute them for making false allegations.”
Hemingway explained, “Damaging someone’s reputation is a real harm. We think of crime as being about actual acts of physical violence, but damage to a reputation causes real harm and it needs to be taken seriously so that these things don’t happen again. Part of it is just about people being aware of what the left does with confirmation battles, but there also needs to be accountability.”
“This is about scaring people out of public life, especially if you’re a Christian and on the right,” said Marlow, “and that, to me, has a lasting impact. … Who wants it? Who wants the attention [or] the scrutiny?”
Kavanaugh received “more questions than every single Supreme Court nominee, to that point, combined,” noted Severino, adding, “These are questions … are designed as a harassment and delay technique.”
Hemingway warned, “Had [Brett Kavanaugh] lost, he would be tarred forever as a serial gang rapist. These were things that were entered into the congressional record that caused real problems for people.”
Future Republican Supreme Court nominees will be subjected to the same “defamation” Kavanaugh received, estimated Hemingway, if those making false allegations are not held accountable.
“When you’re not held accountable, it will happen again,” Hemingway predicted. “Particularly when you are replacing a liberal bloc justice with a Trump nominee, or another Republican president’s nominee. People would be naive to think it won’t happen again, and they need to gird their loins for what could come.”
Severino gauged Kavanaugh’s confirmation as a turning point for conservative advancement against left-wing momentum, contrasting it with Democrats and the broader left defeating the 1987 nomination of Robert Bork.
“Remember, the seat that Justice Kavanaugh fills now is the seat that was denied to Robert Bork back in 1987,” recalled Severino. “Where the conservative movement wasn’t prepared, at that point, to defend [Robert Bork] adequately and successfully, we were able to do so this time last year, and that is a real victory.”
Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.
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